Ptolemy's Gate

and Mandrake sitting by the wall, he gave a plump-fingered wave.
    At the Council table Makepeace selected the largest of the chairs, a golden throne, ornately carved. He sat himself, legs crossed; with a flourish, he drew from a pocket an enormous cigar. A snap of the fingers: the cigar tip burst into smoldering life. Quentin Makepeace placed it between his lips and inhaled with satisfaction.
    Kitty heard Mandrake beside her give a gasp of rage. She herself saw little but the ostentatious theatricality of the performance. If she hadn't been a prisoner, she might have been amused.
    Makepeace made an expansive gesture with the cigar. "Clive, Rufus—would you be so kind as to bring our friends over?"
    The ginger-haired man approached, followed by his thick-lipped companion. Roughly, without ceremony, Kitty and Mandrake were hauled to their feet. Kitty noticed that both conspirators were regarding Mandrake with malevolent dislike. As she watched, the older man, lips moistly parted, stepped forward and struck their prisoner hard across the face.
    The man rubbed his hand. "That's for what you did to Lovelace."
    Mandrake smiled thinly. "Never been slapped by a wet fish before."
    "I hear you were looking for me, Mandrake," the ginger-haired man said. "Well, what are you going to do to me now?"
    From the golden chair a mellifluous voice projected: "Steady, boys, steady! John is our guest. I have affection for him! Bring them over, I say."
    A grip on Kitty's shoulder; she was propelled forward to stand with Mandrake on a rug before the table.
    The other conspirators had seated themselves. Their eyes were hostile. The sullen-faced woman spoke. "What are they doing here, Quentin? This is a crucial time."
    "You should kill Mandrake and have done," the fish-faced magician said.
    Makepeace took a puff on his cigar; his little eyes sparkled with merriment. "Rufus, you are far too hasty. You too, Bess. True, John is not yet part of our company, but I have high hopes that he might become so. We have long been allies, he and I."
    Kitty took a sharp side-glance at the young magician. One cheek was scarlet where the blow had struck. He did not reply.
    "We haven't got time to play games."This was the little man with wide, wet eyes; his voice was nasal, whiny. "We need to give ourselves the power you promised." He looked down at the table, ran his fingers over it in a gesture at once covetous and fearful. To Kitty he seemed weak and cowardly, and angrily conscious of this cowardice. From what she could see, none of the conspirators was any different, save for Makepeace, radiating self-satisfaction from his golden throne.
    The playwright tapped a dollop of ash from his cigar onto the Persian carpet. "No games, my dear Withers," he said, smiling. "I can assure you I am perfectly serious. Devereaux's spies have long reported that—among commoners—John here is the most popular of the magicians. He could give our new Council a fresh, attractive face—well, certainly more attractive than any of you." He grinned at the displeasure he had caused. "Besides, he has talent and ambition to spare. I have a feeling he's long desired the chance to kick Devereaux out and start again. . . Isn't that right, John?"
    Again Kitty looked at Mandrake. Again his pale face gave no inkling of his thoughts.
    "We must give John a little time," Quentin Makepeace said. "All will become clear to him. And you will shortly get all the power you can handle, Mr. Withers. If only the good Hopkins would hurry along, we can proceed." He chuckled to himself— and with that noise, with that name, Kitty knew him.
    It was as if a thick veil had fallen from her eyes. She was back in the Resistance again, three years before. On the advice of the mousy clerk, Clem Hopkins, she had gone to a rendezvous in a disused theater. And once there. . . a dagger held to the back of her neck, a whispered conversation with an unseen man— whose words of guidance led them to the abbey and to the dreadful guardian of the crypt. . .
    "You!" she cried out. "You!"
    All eyes turned to her. She stood stock-still, staring at the man on the golden throne.
    "You were the benefactor," she whispered. "You were the one who betrayed us."
    Mr. Makepeace winked at her. "Ah! You recognize me at last? I wondered if you'd ever recall.. . . Of course, I knew you as soon as I saw you with Mandrake. That's why it amused me to invite you to my little show tonight."
    At Kitty's side John Mandrake stirred at last.